Garrett, Warrior of Rallin
by WarrentheHero
Summary: The Planeswalker Garrett returns to his home plane of Rallin after a long absence to save it from itself.
1. Chapter 1

The being Walked. It was human, that is, in the way it was also a dragon. And elf. And a lexodon. And a rat. It was all of these at once. It was at no point any of them. It was other things, it was nonexistent. The various things that could be cloths in existing places blew and shifted from an omnipresent wind. The figure stepped, and floated, and remained still, as it shifted the un-universe around it, and moved through the lack of sanity.

Nearly any other creature couldn't survive out here, or in there, or whenwhatever the Blind Eternities was. But this figure was held together by its Spark, a rare trait that anchored it as it walked through the madness of everything and nothing. Those without this Spark were simply swept up in the Eternities, and ceased to exist in any sane sense of the word.

As it Walked, it touched upon worlds that it had never known, realities it cared nothing for. It was headed for one place. It was headed home.

In no time at all, or perhaps it was more like a hundred lifetimes, the being arrived at its destination. A strange rift in the non-space. A place where existing was simply unnatural. A place that fit perfectly where it wasn't. The Walker lifted an arm, or a projection of such, as things such as arms didn't really have any merit in the Eternities, and rippled the surface of the rift. It parted a thin curtain between existence and emptiness, and stepped into Rallin.


	2. Chapter 2

"I don't need you to penetrate their defenses. I just need a distraction. Chaos." Garrett said. The Pyromancer stared at him unwaveringly, thinking it through.

"Your armies could simply lob your signature firebombs at the walls. It may not do anything to the city on its face, but it most certainly _will_ do something." Now he waited, hoping he was getting through.

At length, the mage spoke. "Why should I believe this will work? Especially: Why should I trust _you_ will do this?" His voice was dripping with disdain. Why did he even allow this man in his presence?

"Because I want Alandarr to fall just as much as you do, if not more so." Garrett said honestly.

"And how could I trust you can even overcome Alandarr?" the pyromancer asked.

"Summon something. I will prove my worth."

The mage put his hand to his head, as if in deep thought, but the slight movement of his mouth indicated a spell being cast.

Garrett knew this man had no love for him. But he was counting on the pyromancer's greater lack of love for Nairdayn and its current Knight-Commander to pull through. However, he wasn't certain of the extent of the man's rage and hoped silently that nothing truly overwhelming was summoned.

After a few moments more, a massive rift opened in the large room, not truly igniting but becoming aflame nonetheless. The fires grew and swirled and a vaguely humanoid form began to emerge. It was that of a massive ebony-skin demon, with hair, horns, claws, and a whip of fire. It had back-jointed legs, ending in large goat-like hooves. It wore pitch-black armor that had red accents that seemed as if they themselves were made of solid fire. It growled menacingly, brandishing its whip.

Despite himself, Garret laughed aloud. The demon snapped its whip forward with almost blinding speed. But Garrett had long been expecting it, and had a small shield just barely larger than a buckler strapped to his forearm and at the ready. The whip cracked against the metal, leaving ashy scorchmarks.

Garrett would have acted, but the demon already was striking again. Garrett moved his shield, but the demon flicked its wrist, moving his whip in an arc that normal physics shouldn't have allowed for. It could have caused serious damage against Garrett, but he had a spell that almost habit at the ready, and he faded slightly, the whip passing right through him.

Then he was solid again, and he extended his hand. Glowing white runes encircled the demon's wrists, bending them back behind the thing's back. It roared in rage even as it was forced to its knees. Garrett approached, chanting out a spell he had learned from a mage from Mirrodin. Vensin, or something. It was years ago, he couldn't be sure.

He extended his arm, laying his hand upon the demon's chest. It in a puff of fire and light, the demon was gone, thrown across the æther into the Blind Eternities. The thing was torn into the very substance of nonexistence the moment it entered the madness, but it was gone.

Garrett turned towards the emperor, bowing with an extravagant flourish.

"Where did you send my demon?" the king asked, leaning forward.

"The Blind Eternities." Garrett stated simply. He knew the man before him was a fellow Walker, but he also knew that few others did, and that the pyromancer didn't know Garret knew or was. Mentioning the Eternities carried a specific weight he knew would get his point across.

The ruler leaned back in his throne, pondering for a while.

"Very well," he said finally. "I will send my forces to attack Nairdayn in a tenday. You will complete your task then."

"Thank you," Garrett said. He turned and walked away, the palace guards not standing even close to being in his way as he left the castle.

"Do not fail me, former Knight-Commander!" the Pyromancer called as he left, the last thing Garrett heard from within the palace.


	3. Chapter 3

Nairdayn was not a city in the strictest sense. What it truly was was a massive castle, that contained a city-sized population, society, and economy within. It was fully protected, with a massive stone ceiling rising in layers. At each vertical section of the ceiling, there were massive windows, that had equal-sized stone slabs set on special tracks, allowing them to close and the city to become an impenetrable dome of stone.

There were buildings and homes built into and onto the monolithic support columns, and in the center of the city sat the true Nairdayn Castle, a gothic building that reached to the very top of the ceiling.

Despite the security, it was an easy if not long process to enter the city. Garrett was issued a visitor's card for a month, something that he suspected wouldn't be checked or enforced. Not that it would matter.

He found an inn with an available room and spent a few days there, learning how Nairdayn had changed in his absence. He eventually found that, luckily enough, Alandarr would be giving a speech on the day the attack was supposed to begin.

The day of, Garrett made his way to Nairdayn Castle, and waited with a large crowd for Alandarr to appear. After a very long amount of time, the current Knight-Commander appeared on a balcony.

"Citizens of Nairdayn. For years now, we have been at odds with the neighboring kingdom of Irindeir. But I call to you know. Join me, and together we can snuff out this imposing threat once and for all. Soon, I hope to lead an army into Irindeir's capitol and take seize it, not only wiping out a continual threat but expanding our territory and power."

He went on like this for a while, Garrett doing his hardest to suppress a smile. Eventually, however, Garrett got bored, and instead carefully cast a spell, sending his senses outside of his body. He now saw from the top of the city-fortress. He watched carefully, and finally saw a red object in the sky.

Returning to his body, Garrett pushed himself to the front of the crowd.

"Alandarr! I challenge you to a duel for the title of Knight-Commander!" he called over Alandarr's own voice.

The crowd instantly grew silent. It remained that way for a few moments, and in that time, something impacted the city walls.

Panic almost instantly erupted, people running all about to get into a building. Alandarr disappeared back into the castle.

The guards ran forward , but with a quick smile, a short chant, and some fast gestures, Garrett was already a wisp of slightly smoke. He moved forward, simply passing by the armored assailants. Garrett made his way into the castle, turning himself near-invisible as he did so.

Somewhat surprised he still knew the layout, he eventually arrived at one of the many large openings where one of the dozens of staircases stretched upwards. Garrett ascended the steps as Alandarr descended.

Garrett remained unnoticed, and materialized directly in front of his foe, hand extended. Alandarr walked right into the limb, both surprise and the hand stopping him in his tracks.

"Alandarr," Garrett said, assuming a scornful expression. "You have become a tyrant. You must be stopped." He paused for a moment, then continued, "Draw."

Instantly, Garrett was a step away, his right handing unsheathing his blade. Alandarr did the same.

"Garrett?" Alandarr asked. "What are you doing here?"

"Ending your dictatorship."

"You've been gone for twenty-five years!"

"And you've held this city in an iron fist during that time."

All the while, they were circling each other, sizing up their opponent. They hadn't fought each other in over twenty-five years, and even then they had only sparred.

"I did what I had to do!" Alandarr yelled, extending his left hand. Streams of golden light lanced from his hands, and accumulated around each of Garrett's wrists and ankles, solidifying and binding them in place.

"Hieromancy?" Garrett gasped, surprised. "But you,"

"I learned." Alandarr stated, a harsh edge to his voice.

"Well I," Garrett started, smiling. "Always had it." Sensing the weak points in his arcane bonds, he applied pressure from his own magic, combining this with another spell, causing him to flicker briefly, reappearing slightly away from his bonds, free again.

"Now, it's my turn." Garret said, pointing his sword at his foe. White light streamed down the fuller, and soon large triangles appeared around Alandarr's form, and wherever the almost phantasmal shapes touched him, he was locked in place. Garrett twisted his blade slightly, rotating the two triangles and bringing them tighter around Alandarr.

"Try and escape." Garrett challenged. He could see both the strain of Alandarr's muscles and mind as he tried desperately to break the prison.

Garrett walked up, thinking of a plane far away. He began chanting out a complex spell, and placed the tip of his sword on Alandarr's chest. The light returned to the fuller, brighter, this time with slight influences of blue. The light grew, and began surrounding Alandarr.

Just as the spell was nearing its zenith, something very strange happened. Reality itself seemed to ripple, bend, and twist. Alandarr screamed in some pain that neither of Garrett's spells could have caused. Wisps of colorless æther began streaming from Alandarr, and in a puff of some strange substance, unnatural in this world and any, Alandarr was gone.

But Garrett recognized that scream, that substance. And just before Alandarr disappeared, he saw something. A sword, cracked down the middle and engulfed in sparking white.

But at the same moment, reality shifted and seized around him, and we suddenly rejected from Rallin. He was tossed through the Blind eternities, more so than the way a Walk usually happened. In fact, it was even less controlled than the when he first Walked.

He flew through in a way that he had never quite done before, and hit a plane. But rather than fading into it as he usually did, he bounced off of it, colliding with another, that he passed through without ever entering.

On the other side of that plane, he viewed something that filled him with a terror he had never known. Some massive being was near a distant world. It appeared as some form of gargantuan rock slap with coral-like projections and grotesque tentacles hanging from below. Garrett wasn't certain what, but it was doing _something_ to the plane it lingered by, and he felt a perversion of that world, and he felt that it was somehow collapsing.

And then he fell into a plane, finally entering it rather than somehow interacting with it in a way that even the Blind Eternities shouldn't have allowed for.

He fell through the curtain of white light, falling onto a stone street. He was surrounded on all sides by tall buildings, stretching high into the sky, some towers going up into the clouds themselves. He vaguely recognized the architecture. HE had been here before.

Then, blackness overcame him, and he fell unconscious on one of the thousands of streets in Ravnica.


	4. Chapter 4

Garrett woke up, but his eyes remained closed. He inhaled deeply. Keeping his lids shut, he cast himself out into the land around him. It wasn't full of mana, but there was enough. He laid there for a long time, absorbing energy from the land.

He wasn't sure how long exactly it was, but eventually, he was refreshed, and he opened his eyes. He was in a room of mostly stone, with some white wooden furniture here and there. He was lying in a comfortable bed, clad in nothing more than a tight white shirt and some white shorts that extended to just above his knee. He slowly got up, and the world spun, and he almost fell down onto the bed again.

But then it subsided, and he swung his legs over the side of the bed, slowly rising to his feet. He padded through the building, wondering where he was and where his armour was.

"Hello?" he called out. "Is anyone here?"

"Ah, you're awake!" a voice called. Soon, a body appeared to match the voice. It was a man younger than Garrett but not a child. He wore a black blazer over a bright blue shirt that had no discernible buttons. He had pants that were a deep black, matching his blazer. His loafers were brightly polished, matching the color of his pants. It was a little drab for the strange garb of Ravnica, but he looked nice to Garrett's tastes. The man bore a striking resemblance to Alandarr in his younger years, though he had a short cut dark beard.

"I'm Warren." He said. "I found you passed out on the side of the street. I had some of my servants bring you in and get you out of that armour."

"Thank you." Garrett said.

"Take a seat," Warren said, gesturing to a chair, taking one himself. "Who are you?"

"My name," Garrett began, sitting, "is Garrett. "I'm a-"

"Azorius?" Warren interjected. "Your armor was white and blue. That's Azorius colors."

"No." Garrett said. "I'm a sellsword. I simply prefer the colors blue and white. They also make the Azorius Senate overlook me." Of course, he was lying, but he didn't want to associate himself with one of Ravnica's nine ancient Guilds.

"An Azorius-imposter sellsword?" Warren said, his eyes fading away in apparent thought. Garrett put a hand to his head, a slight headache developing. "Are you currently employed?"

"No," Garrett said, a little worried.

"Then you're hired. Five hundred gold to be my bodyguard. I have a… transaction to make. And I don't think the Azors will… approve. I simply need someone like you for guises. Not as much for protection." He followed the last words with a smile that made Garrett think he was more than capable on his own.

Garrett didn't know much about the Ravnican Guilds, but he did know that even after the Guildpact dissolved, many guilds remained in power, and the Azorius Senate didn't like impersonators.

"Five hundred to be an escort?" Garrett said, weighing his odds and moral values. "Alright."

He had long ago dropped his intense desire for lawkeeping, and even his basic moral principles had become slightly desensitized. He considered it, and ultimately convinced himself he'd return his pay and leave if whatever was happening was contrary to what he believed to be right.

"I'm in," he said, tentatively. "When and where?"

"You'll be staying here until then. Then you will simply follow me. Having a supposed Azorius member with me in and of itself shall likely be enough to sway any who would impose anyway." With a dismissing wave, he was gone.

Hours passed, and Garrett didn't see Warren again, despite having free roam to walk about the mansion. It was small for a mansion, but larger than a house. It had many bedrooms and bathrooms, as well as a large kitchen, several lounges, and two studies, one large and one small, where Garrett currently read alone. By the time he was approached by the man, his headache had long since faded and the sun had already fallen behind the admittedly tall horizon. Warren had changed his clothes, now dressed in slimming silks rather than cotton, but he still kept the overall theme of black with blue accents.

"Ready?" he asked, knowing full well the answer as Garrett began pulling on his armor. He closed the door, making them the only two in the room.

"We're not staying in Ravnica for this." he said.

"Well I didn't assume we'd be staying in Ravnica. Where are we going? I don't expect it to be too far away. Maybe Dravhoc? That's about an hour off."

"No, we're not staying on the _plane_ of Ravnica. We're Walking."

"Wait… You're a Walker? How did you know I am?" Garrett asked, confused.

"You just told me." Warren responded mockingly. Then, "And, I read it on your mind."

"Wait, you…" Garrett asked. Mind-Reading was a rare and valuable tool. It was no wonder this man was so wealthy.

"The combination of mind-reading and Planeswalking is the reason I've managed to become a Guildmage of House Dimir. Now, follow." And with those words, the space around him began to shimmer and ripple, lined by wisps of blue and black. Within moments, Garrett, too, was beginning the same procedure, and when he was done, he saw, felt, ignored, and was Warren in the Blind Eternities.

Warren's Spark resembled an eye, with a black sclera and a dark blue iris. Garrett wondered briefly, as he had many times before, what his own Spark looked like.

Warren left what could be called a 'trail' through the nothingness of the Eternities, which Garrett followed. After an incomprehensible amount of time, they arrived at their destination: A plane that felt sickening, infected. Warren's Spark merged with this world, and it left an opening just enough for Garrett to follow.

They fell onto the plane, near a river, which would suit both Garrett and Warren's mana. Garrett briefly considered the frequency of Warren's trips here, to more or less pinpoint a landing zone. The two sat on the surrounding ground for a while, drinking in the river's mana to replenish their energies from the trip. The mana here was strange, and had that same feeling of corruptedness, that something was different, something was almost mechanical about it.

The surrounding area wasn't quite a plain, but it was close, more like a field near a forest. But what was strange was the grass. It flowed and swayed like regular grass, but had an odd metallic sheen.

"Where are we?" he asked Warren.

"New Phyrexia." Warren said bluntly.

"New- New what?" Garrett blurted out, caught off-guard.

"Phyrexia." Warren said again, stepping towards the forest.

"Why are you here, in Phyrexia? _Any_ Phyrexia?" Garrett asked, following angrily.

"Business. But more importantly: information. You see, that is what House Dimir deals in. Buying and selling information."

"What exactly is House Dimir?" Garrett asked, catching up and matching pace with Warren.

"House Dimir is the tenth Guild of Ravnica. Contrary to popular belief, there are more than nine major Guilds. Most only know of the Izzet, Selesnya, Boros, Golgari, et cetera. In the first Guildpact, it was agreed that House Dimir would ascend into darkness, becoming only a whisper of a Guild on the tongues of the rabble. But despite what's widely accepted as truth, Dimir stays in operation. We gather information and sell it to the other Guilds and the wealthy, though only the Guilds know of us. In fact, most of those that we employ don't even know they are helping or a member of the House."

"And what do you want in Phyrexia?" Garrett asked.

"As I said before, Information. We wish to learn how well the meager resistance is doing here, and if any Izzet devices or Golgari fungus is wanted here. And you will not simply Walk away from this plane, unless you want me to kindly deliver an amount of Phyrexian Oil to your precious Rallin." Garrett stopped for a moment, and Warren did the same.

"Free of charge." Warren added, flashing a controlling smile, then resumed his walking.


End file.
